Piling on... with an unsub'ed phone, TCO is the same, only with freedom. the vendors don't give you a discount on the plan, you can just switch without penalty. Therefore the value proposition of a subscription phone for the mass consumer is that $70, $99, $199... up front. If you need a phone, you need a phone now, and you're looking for savings now, and you assume that you won't need to change plans (You can assume that a majority of phones for US 16-19 year olds are...

Note:
Normally next quarter (July-Sep) is the lowest for sales for Apple
Normally, in October, these are the prices (the 5c would be .99, but that's an anomaly) we would be seeing for these models.
If 'permanently' is the operative word, Every retailer will match... or eat inventory in the channel. This is effectively an Apple Price drop.
It's pretty obvious that
a) Apple is clearing the channels of products (iMac, iPod, iPhone, and it's early... I...

is that external drive tested regularly with random restores and compares? Nothing worse than backing up to Write Only Disk drives;-)?(What most Exchange Server backup disks were in the 90's;-) Trust. But Verify. And do the same for Girlfriends (next time, use a revokable key... they're pretty cheap now ;-) )

"IF" I think the comments above so the threat is really at the other low cost android manufacturers. Therefore your ending sentence builds out a sob story that isn't. Back to the top and deconstructing your non-arguments. Your first sentence is all about a zero sum game. It isn't (there is money in ads, and money in promoting content sales [ITMS, google play], and money in hardware. Apple is content in the latter two, and competing in the first is more Apple's...

All of the above, This is the 4" 'entry level' iOS device. Consumes the A5s, the 4" retina glass, the cameras, the Flash... all the parts Apple probably bought in 10M units for the 4 and 4s. with iMessage w/ FaceTime Audio, it's a VOIP phone as well, at least back to the iOS fleet.

you buy the phone that costs less to do the job you expect it to do. if all you do is make calls and surf the web and do facebook. you're pretty mobile. If you happen to need a Android only feature or App, you stay on Android. Or if you've decided your investment in learning a new mobile OS is completely spent on Kit-Kat on BlahBlah S3 5.38" phone, then you're not moving on. Personally, I think you're mapping your iOS expectations on Android - "I just need a phone to text...

isn't that just an dynamic DNS name? you are XYZ.subdomain.domain.TLD whereever you go/are. In the end, the telecoms are just big dumb pipes that can switch traffic onto other big dumb pipes. Their only value add is their mobile IP network, which I should be able to buy in 1 month and/or xxGB units, and switch by a simple updating my 'cellular' network connection (here is my list of accounts... in preferential order). Same for Cable operators, payforplay WiFi,...

35% though? Of windows phone buyers yes (those 50 people will be there as soon as their contracts are up). But 35% 'sway' (meaning. I WILL now buy an iPhone) of Android? That's what, 35% of 400Million sales world wide next year? 150Million? On top of the 200Million 'already gonna buy an iPhone' users? 35% of the 'big phone buyers'... maybe. RBC of Canada must have bought a bunch of AAPL stock at 60 or less, and wants to make a killing